Here’s Monday’s #1 Get-up o’ the Day. Shirt is a Tony Hawk. I’ve always been at home in flannel shirts. Grandpa Anderson wore them every day. They didn’t help him hear any better, that’s for sure. He did always have a soft mint in his shirt pocket for me. I knew he thought their peppermint scent covered up the smell of his cigarettes. We all let him think it. He was happy. Every Christmas I bought him the same gifts: Jergens lotion and Lipton tea bags. Gee, I wish my wants and needs were that simple. I oughta learn a thing or eight from that.
Grandma Anderson didn’t go out of town often; but when she did, Mom bought him a fried chicken dinner from Arctic Circle, and we drove it up to Oak City to feed him. He could go whole years without driving that 14 miles down to Delta. He did, however, make the trip each day his pet rat, Lady, was recovering from a malady at the vet’s. Ok, so Lady wasn’t really a pet rat. Lady (and Lady, Part Two, after the original Lady died) was an angry chihuahua. She only liked Grandpa, and was expert at chewing holes in every other person’s ankles.
And yes, there was an Arctic Circle in Delta when I was a kid. In fact, Mom worked there. Heck, Mom worked everywhere in Delta at some point. Van’s Grocery, Tolley Carpet, The Delmart, some jeans store I can’t remember the name of, the Delta High School lunch room, and Clara’s Cleaning at IPP. And don’t forget: she got fired from IPP for being a security risk!😁😂😜 She was not an extremist Muslim, nor an extremist Mormon. Way to go, IPP!